From being blacklisted in the Soviet Union to becomi ng schoolbook references, it was a long ride to rock stardom for Mumiy Troll.

Don't doubt their credentials: in Russia, Mumiy Troll are national cultural icons, boasting the first video ever played on MTV Russia and gracing the covers of that nation's editions of Rolling Stone and GQ.

Now, after 26 years, they're ready to start over -- in North America.

Mumiy Troll (pronounced Moo-me troll) brings its playful Russian pop-rock to the Starlite Room tonight on its first extensive North American tour.

While many westerners have endured more Nickelback and Hinder than they can handle, rock music was not always so easy to come across for Mumiy Troll's founder and frontman, Ilya Lagutenko.

Growing up behind the Iron Curtain in the seaport town of Vladivostok, Lagutenko had to get his music from sailors with rock 'n' roll contraband.

"The guys would bring this random choice of music. We didn't really follow any trends, (we'd buy) whatever we could get a hold of," he recalls.

"One day you would hear Genesis and the next day ABBA or the next day AC/DC, and it was cool for us. It was so different from what was going on in Russia."

He started his first band at age 11, tracking songs on his grandpa's tape recorder. But even while some of his countrymen were being imprisoned for buying rock records and selling tickets to shows, music was never a political statement for Lagutenko.

"For us, it was fun. We didn't think about it as a rebellion or as anything we'd do against the regime, because we were too young and we didn't really understand any of those things," he says. "It was just basically another game for us. It's like you swap your toy soldiers for toy guitars once and here you are, you've got a band."

Despite its apolitical lyrics, in 1986 after just a few gigs, Mumiy Troll was pronounced "one of the most socially dangerous bands in the world" by the local communist party, gaining the band notoriety throughout Vladivostok.

"They would do all those blacklists which would say, this band is OK to hear and this music is not OK to hear. And one day they said Mumiy Troll is a dangerous band, the same as Sex Pistols and Black Sabbath. I guess they'd never heard us, but they just didn't like the name," he laughs.

The band took a break from '91 to '96 while Lagutenko worked abroad, and the quartet returned to a new political climate that was much more welcoming, thanks to the collapse of the Soviet regime.

Its first album, 1997's Morskaya, was a hit, and awards and critical acclaim flooded in.

Seven more albums and countless sold-out arenas later, Mumiy Troll, they're in North America, just another indie band building a fan base from the ground up, supporting a new five-song digital EP Paradise Ahead.

The good-natured Lagutenko embraces the challenge, fondly recalling his early shows in front of miniscule crowds back home.

"I still remember our days when we tried to get us gigs and only a couple of your closest friends would come. But 10 years later, hundreds of people would claim that they've been to that particular gig," he says with a laugh. "I say, 'Come on guys, I still remember those two people who bought tickets, and they were my neighbours'!"